Nose Breathing, Movement + Slow Breathing
Dear Breather,
When we moved into our last house here in the South of Sri Lanka, my partner and I both immediately struggled to sleep through the night. I had to get up several times to go to the bathroom at night. I never felt refreshed in the mornings. Not cool. We tried to optimize every aspect of sleeping, but to no avail.
Then the solution hit us like a ton of bricks - mouth taping! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch this video)
We somehow had dropped the habit (silly us!). So we started taping our mouths again at night and - tada: we immediately started sleeping through the night with no more bathroom visits and I felt energized after waking.
We assume that the pillows and harder mattresses here in Sri Lanka caused us to have our mouths open more while sleeping. And you cannot have good quality sleep (or good health) if you're breathing through an open mouth.
A little tape works like magic, because it makes sure your mouth stays shut.
So, if you're struggling with your sleep, wake up to pee, or you snore or have sleep apnea or wake up with a dry mouth in the mornings - I highly recommend taping your mouth shut at night. It's also one of the first things I prescribe my breath coaching clients.
It's an awesome low hanging fruit to improve your sleep, your health and breathing pattern during the day. Because the way we breathe at night tends to be the way we breathe when we're awake.
Rule number one:
Mouth is for eating, nose is for breathing. Make sure you nose-breathe at all times (except during very high intensity workouts).
More on nose vs mouth breathing another time!
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
1. Stress, Breath and the Psoas
"During prolonged periods of stress, your psoas muscle is constantly contracted."
"The psoas being intimately involved in the basic physical and emotional reactions, that when chronically tight it continually signals your body that you’re in danger, eventually exhausting the adrenal glands and depleting the immune system.”
Lately, I have been getting really interested in breathing anatomy, how movement and stretching can assist with dysfunctional breathing patterns and where exactly in our bodies we store trauma. If you ever heard a yoga teacher say that your hips store a lot of emotions, then they were absolutely right, but not many can explain why this is the case.
It seems like there is a strong relationship between the amount of stress, anxiety or trauma you have experienced in your life and a tight psoas, which can be responsible for all sorts of issues in your body (pain, digestion, scoliosis..).
I keep exploring the anatomy of our bodies and how it relates to breathing patterns and it fascinates me deeply. Movement practices need to be part of any breath practice if we really want to make a sustainable difference in our physical, mental and emotional health. I too have recently upped my stretching and mobility game by a lot and am currently also doing a 21 Day Hip Opener Challenge (15 minutes a day - 3 poses for 5 minutes each).
2. The Benefits of Slow Breathing on Heart Rate Variability
The best breathing practice to increase your HRV is by slowing down our breathing using coherence breathing at a rate of about 5.5 breaths per minutes:
Inhale to a count of 5 or 6 and exhale for 5 or 6. Essentially making the in-breath and out-breath the same length.
Here are few studies supporting this:
Influence of deep breathing exercise on spontaneous respiratory rate and heart rate variability (2012)
The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human (2017)
Fun Fact: After about two to three weeks of being in Sri Lanka in February, I noticed something interesting - my HRV went up by about a third (which is a lot).
I definitely felt way more relaxed and calm and my skin issues cleared up.
Being in the tropics, out in nature more and slowing down my life meant I was more in parasympathetic mode, which meant I was organically also breathing slower. Hence: a higher HRV.
I recorded a new breath practice meditation!
It's a 12-minute guided Breathwork practice to kick off your day.
We first use an activating breath to get us going and then follow this up with some nice coherence breathing for a nice nervous system balance.
Plus:
I am currently finishing up the Advanced Oxygen Advantage Instructor Training with Patrick McKeown with an add-on training specifically for Yoga and Pranayama teachers. Excited to be extending my offerings as a breathwork teacher and coach.
Next up, I plan to create a guided breathwork session for sleep as well as one for anxiety and stress.
Sometime this year, I will open an online breathwork studio so you can breathe with me regularly live and get access to a library of guided breathwork practices that you can do whenever you want. What ya think?
BREATHE WITH ME
Join me for my upcoming online event - this one is in German:
Himmel, Arsch + Zwirn! Endlich richtig wütend!
I am running an online workshop on how to consciously deal with and process anger with my partner Christine Schmid. (In German)
If you want to learn more about how to create a new and healthy relationship with anger, then come join us on May 29.
More online group Breathwork events coming up again soon!
You can also work with me 1on1 - I am currently taking bookings for June for deep dive Breathwork journeys and my 4-week breath coaching program. Very limited spaces available. Respond to this email if you're interested.
Happy breathing :)
Conni. 🐋
PS: